Azure Eyes

The number of bars in this sordid world would scare a pious man. In every village and every town and every city all around the entire globe, there are establishments which cater to the only two real goals for the sinners. Forgetfulness and fornication. Can you imagine what a satellite image, using testosterone-sensitive radar programs devised by the horny boys and girls at MIT, would look like if we could isolate all the bars on earth from up there somewhere? It'd be a hell of a grid.

A pair of white painters' pants.
(How could they ever paint you?)
A baby blue top
Fitting so close
It seems like you're gonna burst thru.

I don't go to the bars any more these days. They served their purpose for me and now they just seem a bit sad. The thing I notice the most is how many kids are smoking these days in bars. Especially girls. I guess we used to smoke a lot, too. I can't really remember. The forgetfulness, you know. It was Goal #1.

A doctor for a boyfriend.
(How could he operate you?)
A body of water,
A body of land,
A body of knowledge that we both can understand.

Her name was Crickett. Or, that's what she said. I believed her. She was the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen. That day. That day she walked past me as I sat on that maroon red bar stool in midtown Memphis. What solar flare had misfired to put a girl who looked like this in a position of waiting tables? The entire universe was misaligned. This was the sort of girl who should be getting out of a limo in LA or wearing an evening gown on Broadway at some opening. I was not about to allow this glitch in the matrix to slip by without at least a try. "Can't nothin' fail but a try," was the best wisdom I'd heard in my life up to this point.

You're waiting on tables.
(I'm waiting on you.)
I'm wishing so much
That I'm losing my touch.
Show me what it takes to show my love for you.

As she walked by, I gently put my hand out to touch her elbow just enough to stop her. "I just had to say something to you. I don't usually do this."

"Sure you don't. None of them do." The sarcasm was coming from that Daryl Hannah-looking mouth, but the energy coming from those ice-blue eyes was overriding the "don't" in my ears.

I told her my name and asked her why she was working in this bar. The implication should have been obvious, I felt. She told me that her boyfriend was in medical school and that this was her way of helping out until the big payoff when he got out. She didn't put it like that, but I knew exactly how that wave was breaking. This was the chorus.

As your eyes and mine
Find each other we find
That they both are blue,
But, oooh, baby, you
With those azure eyes.

I went home and wrote this song for her. I was playing in a band at the time, and I talked them into rehearsing it. I went back to the bar about a week later and put my hand on her elbow again as she walked by. "I wrote you a song."

"Sure you did. They all do." A mouth full of sarcasm but those eyes were shining bright enough to belie that boast of carelessness. "And where could I hear this song of yours? Let me guess. Your house?"

"No. You could come down to hear my band play at that place down the street Friday night."